Polk School Board members outline 6 legislative priorities for district during meeting with local Democrats

Kimberly C. Moore @KMooreTheLedger

Monday

Mar 18, 2019 at 9:29 PMMar 19, 2019 at 9:26 AM

School Board member Sarah Fortney laid out the six legislative priorities the school district has told local lawmakers it wants from this year's legislative session, while Billy Townsend spent a lot of his time at the podium deriding school vouchers.

BARTOW — Two members of the Polk County School Board spoke to members of the Democratic Party and the public Monday evening about issues they said are important to the school district. At the top of the list were "unfunded mandates."

School Board member Sarah Fortney laid out the six legislative priorities the school district has told local lawmakers they want from this year’s legislative session.

The first was something called compression funding, a method lawmakers came up with to help highly populated counties whose tax base is not as high as counties along Florida coast.

“That compression allocation was given to Polk County and 31 other counties to make up for us being student rich and property poor,” Fortney said. “We’re trying to keep that in that formula so it’s not a one-time bit of money. That’s really the only way we can try to give a livable wage to our employees.

Fortney said they also want to increase by 3 percent the base student allocation — money given by the state for a general education student. It is currently at $4,100.

In addition, the school district wants the state to revamp the general knowledge exam, a test that many teachers are now having a difficult time passing after the state decreased the number of questions. However, they must pass it in order to teach. The math portion is a particular stumbling block, requiring elementary education teachers to correctly answer algebra and geometry questions.

“The Florida Bar (exam) has a higher pass rate,” Fortney said.

They also want to see the state do away with its current model of evaluating teachers and giving them bonuses, called the value added model or VAM, which Fortney calls the "VAM scam." Through this system, teachers are evaluated based on their students’ test scores, regardless of whether they teach special education or advanced placement students.

They also want the state to fully fund school resource officers — a mandate state leaders passed last year following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 14 students and three teachers and coaches dead. And finally, they want to update school safety statutes to address issues found by law enforcement officers.

“My personal feeling is the more guns, the more chances of people getting hurt,” Fortney said. “I hate to say it, but it’s going to be our kids of color and our teachers of color who are the ones that are going to be in the front lines — that’s just the way the world is.”

School Board member Billy Townsend spent a lot of his time at the podium deriding school vouchers, repeatedly calling the program that uses state money to send students to private schools or what he calls “grafter” schools that open for the sole purpose of taking education dollars while providing as little education and services as possible.

“Vouchers are tickets to fraud and abuse,” Townsend said, citing the arrest last month of Charles “Pastor Tiger” Aguon, the 34-year-old headmaster of Kingdom Prep School in Auburndale, on sexual abuse charges.

Townsend also had a suggestion for Democratic lawmakers.

“What Democrats have failed to do as a party is to make teachers the core of their political coalition,” Townsend told the small gathering. “Who is the core of the Republican coalition? Police. Republicans have made themselves the party of order. Democrats need to be the party of development — human development. I don’t see support our teacher bumper stickers out there. I don’t see Democrats making teachers the heart of our political core.”

Townsend, while not advocating for it, said the only thing that is going to get the attention of lawmakers is a massive teacher strike.

But Polk Education Association President Marianne Capoziello explained that would be a very high cost for teachers if they did strike.

“In Florida, we have some of the most draconian strike laws in the entire nation,” Capoziello said. “I want you to understand, if a teacher strikes, they can lose their certification, have their retirement stripped from them, lose their job and not get it back and their union will be disbanded. Striking is very, very difficult in the state of Florida.”

Kimberly C. Moore can be reached at kmoore@theledger.com or 863-802-7514. Follow her on Twitter at @KMooreTheLedger.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.